Ziggy Stardust wouldn’t have been the same without the help of David Bowie’s new friends from the cast of Andy Warhol’s play, ‘Pork.’ The groundbreaking avant garde theatrical production shocked audiences by taking aim at pretty much every social taboo you could imagine — and maybe a few you can't. David loved it, but he loved the cast even more. He was entranced by their bold style, an unmissable blend of gritty New York street and gaudy old Hollywood glamor. They, in turn, appreciated David's own brand of artistic fearlessness. In short, they were kindred spirts.
The ‘Pork’ crowd would have a marked effect on David's life and career, changing his relationship to performance and inspiring him to new creative heights. They also had a hand in launching him into the pop stratosphere. David's manager, Tony Defries, tapped the Warholites to head up the New York office of his management company, MainMan. Though few had any actual business experience, they made it work.
In the latest bonus episode of 'Off the Record,' Jordan spoke to genuine Warhol superstar and alternative arts scene legend, Ms. Cherry Vanilla. After starring in the London production of ‘Pork,’ she was hired to work at MainMan as Bowie's public relations manager. Unlike most of her Warhol compatriots, she actually had a substantial professional background, having worked in the real-life ‘Mad Men’ world of advertising in the mid-'60s. The experience would come in handy when hyping David to the world. It was she who crafted some of the enduring myths and tall tales that surround his legend to this day. For a glorious stretch in the early '70s, she and David were friends, lovers and artistic comrades.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Off the Record is a production of I Heart Radio.
Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of Off the Record.
My name's Jordan Runtuck. Thanks so much for listening. Our
latest chapter concerns the rise of Ziggy Stardust, Bowie's breakthrough
persona that would become arguably his most enduring artistic legacy.
(00:20):
The androgynous alien poet Messiah took inspiration from various elements
of David's past interests and present obsessions, ranging from pulpy
fifty sci fi TV shows to rock and roll burnouts,
a cult American country act, Eastern philosophies, and an overall
interest in show business artifice. Ziggy was, as David would
(00:41):
later say, his grand kitch painting. David developed the concept
throughout much of nine, but it's fair to say that
Ziggy Stardust would have turned out quite different without the
involvement of some new friends he met that August. They
were an unabashedly outrageous gang of actors and performers from
Andy Warhol's fact recene in downtown Manhattan. They traveled to
(01:03):
England to perform Warhol's extremely off Broadway play Pork, The
groundbreaking avant garde productions shocked audiences by taking aim at
pretty much every social taboo you could imagine, and maybe
a few they can. It was innovative, it was funny,
and it was brave. David loved it, and he loved
the cast even more. He was entranced by their bold
(01:25):
attitude and style, an unmissable blend of gritty New York
Street and gaudy old Hollywood clamor. They appreciated david Zone
artistic fearlessness and deep interest in theatrical production, dating back
to his days studying mime under Lindsay Kemp. In short,
they were kindred spirits. The Port crowd would have a
marked effect on David's life and career, changing his relationship
(01:47):
to performance and inspiring him to new creative heights. They
also had a hand in launching him into the pop stratosphere.
David's manager, Tony de Freeze, tapped the Warhol Lights to
head up the New York office of his management company MainMan.
Though if you had any actual business experience, they improvised. Hey,
they were performers after all. I'm so thrilled to talk
(02:10):
to a genuine Warhol superstar and legend of the alternative
art scene. Ms Cherry Vanilla. A list of her accomplishments
is practically a podcast series in itself. I highly encourage
you to check out her two thousand ten memoir Lick Me.
She's a DJ, an actress, an activist, a poet, and
a punk rock pioneer whose first backing band, Lady, revolved
(02:30):
into the Police. After starring in the London production of Pork,
she was hired to work at Maineman as Bowie's public
relations manager. Unlike most of her Warhol compatriots, she actually
had a substantial professional background, having worked in the real
life Madman world of advertising in the mid sixties. The
experience would come in handy when promoting David to the world.
(02:51):
It was she who crafted some of the tall tales
that surround his legend to this day. For a glorious
stretch in the early seventies, she and David were friends, lovers,
and artistic comrades. I'm so excited to share her story
of how she helped launch the Starman into orbit. I
(03:12):
was trying to write an introduction for you, and I
didn't know where to begin. I mean DJ Warhol, superstar Bowie, publicist,
rock singer, author, artist, I mean I didn't know where
to start. You know, Um, I really sometimes I mean
I've med hung out with, had relationships with, you know,
mental or physical with you know, iconic artists, you know
(03:35):
Van Gillis and um oh God, going all the way
back in my life to you know Donnamici when I
was a child, and Joel Schumacher filmmaker and a artist.
And but you know, the two that have become so
iconic are Bowie and Warhol. And I can't believe how
iconic they've become. They are more than just you know,
(04:00):
like the greatest artist of our generation. But they've achieved
this uh stature of changing society in a way and
giving lots of odd ball kids and artists a whole
new outlook on life. They've really reached the status. And
I can't believe I had. You know, this intimacy was
(04:22):
each of them, you know, with Bowie both mental and physical,
and with Warhol just kind of mental and you know,
really mental in both ways. But um you know, I'm
the garbage man's daughter, you know what I mean. And
I think the value of my life now that I'm
seventy seven and I can like really start looking back
(04:45):
on it is the intimacy I achieved with so many
of these men. And I'm thinking how because I gave
up sex at forty and that changed my relationship with men.
But I think women would love most women would love
to have mental relationships with men, and I think a
(05:05):
lot of men, I don't know. It's not as offered
to women as much as sexual intimacy, you know what
I mean. And I think that's the whole thing with
the whole groupie ear a thing like what was offered
to you in the short time you ever got to
encounter these people. They were going to be in town
for twenty four hours or something, and that could be it.
(05:25):
So what was offered was sexual intimacy, And so I
think as a groupie, you just said, okay, I'll take it,
because then there'll be that many more hours I'll be
there to try to have some mental intimacy with him,
which was so much more valuable, which is what you
wanted so much more. And then of course creative intimacy
with other artists. And in my case, I don't know,
(05:48):
it seemed to be men in a way. I don't
know why. That was a couple of women here and
there who I worked with or whatever. But I look
back at it now and I think that's what I
was so lucky to have, was that kind of and
I still have it. And as I said, once I
gave up sex, I started to have it even more
(06:10):
because when you're not putting out a sexual vibe, you're
not scaring men either, you know what I mean, especially
if you're putting one out in your seventies. God God knows.
But so, yeah, it's been it's been an interesting trip.
And I'm looking back at it, like you know these
days and saying, well, you know, what was my life worth?
(06:31):
And and there are some people trying to make a
movie of my life, so they're always asking me those questions,
you know, and why you and blah blah blah. So
I'm always thinking about it for them anyway. Yeah, I
wouldn't trade it with anybody, really, I don't think so.
Now I was rereading your book and the path of
(06:52):
your life is just so incredible. Take it back to
the very beginning. How did this all start for you?
Growing up as a little Irish Catholic girl in Queens
to Madison Avenue and getting involved with the theater of
the Ridiculous and getting cast in pork. Tell me how
it all began for you. Well, the Copacabana had a
big influence on me, because otherwise I wouldn't have known
the life outside of Queens that I knew my father
(07:15):
working for the sanitation department. But because my mother was
a telephone operator where the copa was, um, I got
to see like glussy, glamorous nightlife and incredible entertainers. When
I was, you know, six seven years old, my father started,
you know, letting me watch the shows and everything, and
(07:35):
that gave me another vision, like a dream life. And
I couldn't even really say it to my family. Couldn't.
In my family, Irish Catholic, working class, we nobody called
themselves an artist, you know. You just didn't say, learn
how to type, forget about them, or get married, you know.
(07:59):
So I had to kind of keep it to myself
in a way. Although I took dance lessons and was
in all the plays in school and all that kind
of stuff. But when I graduated high school, I was seventeen.
It was nineteen sixty one. My parents didn't have the
money to sent me to college. I certainly wasn't a
scholarship winner, and so and it was assumed, you know,
(08:24):
you're just gonna get married, will be a secretary anyway,
so just get out there and work. Advertising was still
like a very glamorous field, kind of Doris day Rock
cousin movie material and stuff and Madison Avenue. So and
I had a boyfriend in my senior year in high
school and he was he worked at an ad agency.
(08:47):
So I got a job there and that was Sullivan
stuff with Cola and Bellis was my first job. And
it was fabulous, you know, it was a fabulous world.
And it was know a cushy job. I mean, my family,
everybody worked so hard at what they did, and advertising
(09:07):
was cushy. I mean there was so many coffee breaks
and long lunches and cocktails at five, the amount of
hours you put in every day unless you were on
a TV shoot or something. And there were handsome young
men and it was kind of a great field. So
I really enjoyed it, and so I kind of moved
up in it, you know, when when they're an opportunity arose.
(09:30):
There was a lesbian woman actually who was a producer,
and I was like a lowly I had a lowly
job in the radio TV production department, but she was
leaving and she saw my value and she started training me.
And when she left, I took her job and I
became a radio TV producer. And I was like, I
(09:50):
don't know, a nineteen twenty top. Yeah, yeah, you know.
I went to school. I went to the New School
UM for so sual research at night with Arnald Eagle
was the teacher. And but I kind of dropped out
after a while because I was learning so much more
on the job and that's kind of always how I
(10:12):
seemed to learn best. And I was loving it. I
loved the whole you know, radio TV process, mechanical process
side of it, entertainment side, I loved all of it.
So that's how I did that, and I stayed. I
actually had like a full time advertising job for eight years,
and then you know, as time went on, I got
(10:35):
interested in theater of the ridiculous, and pretty much I
was only freelancing for like I would just do a
TV production job something when I needed the money. But
I was more already into like theater and music, and
I had already moved on from advertising, and you know,
(10:55):
that's how I then started. I was in one little
play and then Andy warholsa on the in it, and
when he took Pork to London in ninev one, he
didn't like the girl who was playing the lead in
the New York Pork. I wasn't in Pork in New York,
and so I auditioned for him and I got the
(11:17):
lead to play the pork in the in the play
in London, and that's where we met David Bowie and
you know, on and on from there. So it's quite
quite an honesty. How did you you first enter David's orbit?
When you were when you got to England. Well, we
(11:38):
got a lot of publicity when we went with Pork
because we were Warhol people, and so we were in
the newspapers a lot and all of that. And he
was not yet that famous. He had had space authority,
but he had three or four albums already that you know,
just didn't make it. He was he was still playing
little teeny clubs and stuff like that. So we were
(12:01):
like unequal footing artistically. In fact, we were like kind
of bigger than he was at that moment in a way,
you know what I mean. We were we had all
the publicity and you know, Warhol comes to London. Although
they ripped just to shreds. But but anyway, so he
knew of us, and we knew of him because Lee
(12:22):
Children's kept up a lot with um the press, because
he took photographs for a lot of rock magazines in
America and stuff, and he had heard of David Bowie.
David Bowie had come to America a couple of years
earlier on like a radio interview tour. He couldn't do
any gigs because the work permits, but he did like
a radio tour, so some people knew about him. I
(12:44):
didn't know about him then. Most people didn't know about him.
And Tiny Piece and Rolling Stone about him that Lee
had seen. And we were on our way to rehearsal
for Pork one day in London and we saw a
poster for him playing at a little club, the Country Club,
and so we went to see him that night, Lee Schilder's,
Jane County and me and it was him on acoustic guitar,
(13:10):
Rick Wakeman on piano, and Mick Ronson on electric guitar
and people sat on the floor. It was like, you know,
kind of a hippie club and it was well, it
was just past the hippie era, sort of and he
still had like long blonde hair and more you know, pleaded,
kind of silky pants and yellow Mary James and I
(13:31):
an't sure if Hunky Dorry was out already or had
just been recorded, but they were already writing songs and
Phyziggie started us, so he was in between that he
played mostly Hunky Dorry stuff. And she didn't have a
drummer or a bass player or anything, so I guess,
and that ziggy stuff hadn't come out yet, so it's
kind of in that era. And and she was there
(13:53):
and she did the lights and the sound, and so
we went up to her and introduced ourselves and said,
you know, we're in the cast of Andy Warhol's Pork.
It's called David. I love to meet you, darlings, Lola,
Lola so and he had written that song, Andy Warhol,
and so when he did it on stage, he introduced
(14:14):
us as the cast members and asked us to stand
up and take about so we did. I popped out
one tip, which was some gesture I did all through
the play because I was playing the part of Bridget Pulk,
Bridget Berlin. And that's how Polk comes from Pork comes
from Polk. Whatever, And in real life she was always
(14:34):
like jabbing a needle with speed and right through her
jeans and popping out one tit. So that was like
a gesture I did in the play. And so afterwards
we went to a discotheque together and we all danced
and hung out, and then they came to see the
play one night, along with Jannegspie and Tony DeFries, and
(14:56):
of course they came backstage, and then we all went
out again and we we hung out and then invited
us to their house Fatigue, and we'd go out there
for tea on a Sunday afternoon, and so we all
became friends in that way. And Pork lasted like a month,
and then it was supposed to move to the West
End and we never did, and so we all kind
(15:20):
of went our separate ways after that. But you know,
we could see what he could be. You know, he
was so talented and so charismatic that you know, we
could see this was a guy we should tell everybody
about back home, and so we did, and Tony Zanetta
(15:41):
got to be really good friends with him, maybe even
better friends than us. More quickly they related, and so
then in September of seventy two, when Tony DeFries was
managing David and In in England and decided it was
time to bring him to America to tour. He hired
(16:04):
Tony Zanetta to be like the head of main man
the management company, and Tony basically called me up one day.
I was living in Connecticut, I think, with the Berkshires.
He called me up one day and I wasn't working.
I was probably writing but not earning any money, and
he said, oh, we could use somebody to answer the phones.
(16:25):
We just got a little office on fifty Street and
manotte night. So I said, okay. So I went to
New York and I, you know, was taking on the
job supposedly of answering the phones. But you know, I
had background in first of all, I had my high
school was like a business school, so I had background
(16:46):
in all the business machines and proper letter writing and
all that other kind of stuff. And Tony and the
other people around Jeffries and David at the time when
David was still in England, but they didn't that kind
of sort of practical office experienced and in corporate structure
that I had known. So all of a sudden I
(17:09):
was like you know, ordering fax machines and desks and
typewriters and telephone service and show for service and you know,
so I was like running the office. And then little
by little we were adding people to help. And then
when David, when Tony brought David over for the first tour, Tony,
Zanetta and Lee Childrens went out on the road with
(17:31):
him and I at the beginning, I stayed behind to
run the office and have them check in with me
and keep everything going. And then eventually I got an
assistant and I heard somebody and then because Tony Jeffries
wouldn't let the press talk to David Bowie because he
kept it like they couldn't get access, so they got
(17:54):
to talk to me, and uh and since I seem
to be a knack trail at that, you know, even
though we didn't have the internet and everything, so I
didn't even know that much about David back then. I mean,
it was crazy because everything was going so fast, So
I just made up a lot of facts when they'd
asked me things that because truly it was there was
(18:17):
no time. I mean I was also taken care of,
like like I would go ahead if they were going
to go to a certain city. I would go ahead
by a week or something to that city, and I'd
get myself on the radio and you know, do interviews
and stuff so that we could drum up ticket sales.
So then I would go on to the next city,
(18:37):
and I would also like do little bibles for them,
like where the dry cleaner was, where the late night
bar was, where the best Indian restaurant. What you know.
I was doing all these little chores, uh, and publicity,
and then I would go on to the next city.
But then because I wanted to see all the shows,
I would fly back to the other city where I
(18:59):
had just been to catch the show because I didn't
want to miss a show because you know that that
was like the most fabulous time. That was ziggy star
dost time, you know, the most fabulous time. Gorgeous young
David and gorgeous young Nick. And so I was on planes,
you know. I remember one day. I was on three
(19:20):
planes that day, three different cities that day. Um, yeah,
and you know, and I loved it. I loved it.
I loved it, and I love being able to see
all the shows. And um, I missed one or two.
I missed New Orleans. I never got to New Orleans.
Isn't this funny? I'm still never have been to New Orleans.
I've got to get there one day. But um, I
(19:41):
missed a couple of cities here and there. But that's
mostly how it happened. And then um, from there, you know,
that was it? Bowie rose like a star and uh
that we knew he was thinking of all the promotional
(20:03):
work you were doing and try to hype David. Was
he a hard sell in nineteen two or do people
catch on quickly that this was somebody to take notice of? Well,
thanks to my publicity. The thing is, the thing is
he came at a certain time when the sexuality look,
sexuality is always going to grab people. And I didn't
(20:26):
have I didn't even know how to do PR. I
knew how to do advertising, but PR for Rock Stop
R for anybody I never did, it was a little different.
And I didn't have a strategy. None of us had,
even DeFries didn't have. He had his own strategy for management.
But he didn't really have a PR strategy except well
(20:46):
he did in a way because like he had karate
clad um uniform bodyguards you know around David. But nobody
has been trying to get near David, you know what
I mean. And he told the press that David wouldn't
do any interviews even though they weren't banging down the
doors for interviews. So yes, he did, he did. I
(21:07):
shouldn't say that about because he did. We all played
a part in the pr but on the sexuality, and
which I knew would get the talk going. You know,
there was this edge where people wondered was he gayo straight?
Everybody wondered was he gayo straight? You know, so that
I knew was like a point to get people talking,
(21:30):
especially the people I knew in in New York and
Los Angeles and all that. And so as time went on,
when he said he was bisexual and and I at
the same time was saying he was great sex being
a woman, and I'm so I'm sort of intimating he
was heatero And then he's saying he's by and then
somebody else says, uh, he's gay, And so I think
(21:54):
that helped boost the publicity a lot. And then Tony's
Tony different his genius which he was at management and
um and you know, all of us together Lee children
doing all the photos and Tony another managing the tours,
and you know, we were actors, so we looked at
(22:17):
it like improvisation, like we were given a play to play,
and it was total improv for all of us. And
in a way that maybe is what made it so
different and so fresh and so new seeming and stuff,
because we didn't really know what we were doing. We
just loved him, believed in him. We're having a ball,
(22:38):
getting paid hardly any money at all. We were doing
this for the love of it, which corny as it sounds.
When you do something for the love of it, that's
real success, you know. So you know that's the way
it went. And it was, you know, wonderful, marvelous, incredible
time in our lives, you know, an incredible time and
(22:58):
we were young and hot, and you know, we were
having a ball. So, um, I forgot your question, whatever
it was you answered it. I just there's a great
quote you gave it an interview once that I love
life presents people to me and I say yes or no.
What made you say yes to David Bowie? What was
(23:19):
it about him that attracted him to you? Well, first
of all, I think there's a thing called pheromones and
aura and a spirit body so I think there's a
chemical element and a spiritual element in what people like.
I meet a lot of people, and some people I
can't remember their name after ten times meeting them, and
other people, the minute you know you've experienced this too.
(23:41):
The minute you meet them, like you know, there's something
this person is going to be in your life. So
there was that, But of course I didn't meet him
right away. I saw him on stage the first I
was in the audience, So the first thing I saw
was his artistry and his he was just born to
(24:02):
do it. He was just born to be a rock
star when he came out on the stage, even though
he he didn't have all the ziggy look together yet,
which really helped, you know, him sell himself to the public.
He was born to be a rock star. You just
saw it. You knew it. The way he related musically.
You know, he could play the guitar. He had a
(24:24):
beautiful voice, His songs had some even humor in them.
His lyrics were fabulous. His connection with the audience was instant,
and you could tell everybody just you could hear a
pin drop in the room and it was just a
little club. So he already had that aura he already
(24:44):
had that thing, so that was on stage. So then
when afterwards when we got to meet him up close,
you know, the vibration was right there, this vibration of like, yeah,
this person, I'm I'm not letting this person go. This
person is going to be in my life, you know,
And so I can't explain it any other way than that.
(25:05):
And plus he was so down to earth and friendly
and funny and easy to meet. It was easy. He
was easy, He was comfortable. You know, we were comfortable
with him, and he was comfortable with us, and he
treated us like equal artists or even you know whatever.
And I guess, you know, it was just that thing
(25:28):
that one can't really explain what it was. It was
just something I knew that, you know, we all knew.
Although Jane County and Lee they afterwards when everybody talked
for them, he wasn't rock and roll enough, and so
they were a little bit like, oh, he's kind of
a hippie folk singer. But I knew because Mick Ronson
(25:50):
was going to make a more rock and roll and
even though I hadn't heard the ziggy stardust stuff yet,
with guitars and drums and all that kind of stuff.
You knew that with mc ronson he was going to
be more electric soon and and that he had to
go that way in a way to be the rock
star I envisioned, and so I I saw that immediately,
(26:14):
and they were like okay. But then of course they
saw and they saw the other aspect of him, you know,
the charisma for sure. And I like the guys you
hung out with her awakeman and Nick Ronson. In fact,
I thought Nick Ronson was you know, oh my god.
I was so you know, sexually attracted to Mick more
(26:35):
than David. But but that's because David had a wife also,
and um, you know she was there. But but Mick
I scared to death. I never had sex with McK ronson,
but I became because I came on so heavy from
New York with the sexuality. And Mick is is such
a you know, such a small town boy from Hall.
(26:57):
I mean, have you ever been to Hall? I have not.
It's in the very northern tip of the UK, about
of England rather, and it's really I mean, he was
a small town boy, you know, and I was coming
on like, you know, right away, wanting to go to
bed with him. That night, you know, and that just
was too much for him. But we became friends, of course,
(27:18):
and uh and I just adored him, Oh God, I
adored him. So anyway, Um, yeah, that's that's what I
So what do you think that that David learned from
all of you? I feel like you were such a
huge influence on his life as well as as as
him on yours. What do you feel like that that
he got from all of you. It seems like you
(27:40):
gave him permission in a lot of ways to be
more himself and confidence and that's what he gave to,
you know, the world, to two kids who were confused
about whatever their sexuality or you know, they're being a
nerd or whatever. But um, first of all, on a
(28:01):
I don't know, geographic basis, he always wanted to know
more about New York. I think he liked lou Reid
and all of that, and he had made that one
trip to America, and he liked our New York Street
nous that we would like New York Street urchins, actors
in the kind of theater, like the kind of theater
(28:23):
we had been doing in New York was like on
the same level he was doing in London with Lindsey Kemp.
You know, it was small theaters, nobody made any money.
He made your own costumes, and you know, it was
far out avant garde kind of and so I think
that interested him that we were like we were kind
of doing the same thing. I was wasn't mine, his
(28:45):
was mine, but it was on the same level and
it was like off off Broadway, and so he wanted
he wanted information about that, and he wanted to be associated,
I think with that kind of artistry and theatricality and also, um,
(29:07):
you know, the American nous of us in a way
um and you know, on a on a business level,
like how radio worked in America, how the uh newspapers
worked Ina Like in England, you know how the newspapers are.
They're national, so you get you getting one year, you're
a star in the country. But in America the radio
(29:29):
and the and the newspapers and stuff are also regional
or war then, you know, and so you have to
do it for a lot of different regions, for a
lot of different types of people in America in each
city you visit and so forth, and you have to
learn to relate to a lot of people in different
ways and stuff, and and our freedom I think are
(29:50):
are Although we thought we were so free sexually, but
when we got to England to London, we were We
met a lot of people and including the Bowies and
a lot other people who were you know, already way
free sexually. They just called it kinky over there, you know.
And but I think the fact that he could be
himself around us, and if it was sexual, it was sexual,
(30:13):
and if it was business, it was business. And and
the fact that we could all play these different roles
with him, you know, and uh, and yet kind of
be on his level. Of course, he rose to stardom
way above any level we ever achieved of stardom, but
we kind of always stayed on that same thing where
we were friends on an intimate on many levels, like
(30:35):
getting back to that intimacy thing of mental intimacy. We
could exchange ideas, we could understand, you know. I remember
once I worked I wouldn't say who it was, but
I did some work once for a famous director and
I said, what is it you need from me? He said,
I need somebody who anticipates my needs. And then went, oh, okay,
(30:58):
that's to say and very nail things to say right,
and but it got me, you know, on my toes.
And so in a way, we we had a shorthand
with each other when it came to show Bisbowie and us,
you know. And so even if it was like arranging
the tour bus or you know, make sure his clothes
(31:18):
came back from the cleaners, or you know, we got
to do it with you know, fellow artists and friends,
and and we didn't mind all this practicality that I
had to go with it. That was just the business
side of it. So I think he probably appreciated that
in us, you know, And we never had like big
egos about it. Like people often say to me now,
(31:40):
like oh, well, you maye Bowie say this. I said,
no way. I was part of a team of a
lot of people. And when you get a lot of
people together and that their energies all going the same direction,
that's how you achieve things. And so I was a
part of it. I would never take big credit like
I did this. I made him a star in no way.
(32:02):
So I think it was that like we were all
in a play together. He was in the place, like
we lived our lives like in a play. Okay, I'm
going to play the role of the pr lady now
and I play the role of a tour manager now
and a president of may man or whatever Tony's not.
It was playing and and he was playing the part
of the rock star, and we all improvised our roles,
(32:24):
you know. So I think that must have kept him
interested and excited as us, as much as we were
interested and excited in him, you know. And then of
course one day he moved on from us and learned
things from other people, but we moved on from him also,
So you know, that's the way it goes in this
play that you're all performing. Is there a climax for you?
(32:45):
Is there a moment that really crystallizes everything, that is
just the golden moment that you hold on to. Oh,
it was the first time I had sex with him,
for sure. That's a good more literal climax than I met,
but very good. Well on the mental climax part, Yeah,
I tell us a little story in the book and
it really meant a lot to me. Um, And it
(33:07):
wasn't any great creative thing we did together or worked out.
I mean, I really got off on making the TV
commercials on him for Diamond doggs and stuff like that.
That was great because I was taking my expertise and
experience at the time and with very little money making
you know, TV commercials for him and radio commercials and stuff,
(33:29):
and that I took great pride in. And but um,
there was a moment that I loved a lot. And
it was when we were in London and he was
doing a show in London. Um, and I was in
charge of who he was allowed to talk to in
the press, and everybody wanted an interview. This is when
he was already had become pretty big. Everybody wanted an interview.
(33:50):
So I chose, you know, the two or three people
that we were going to give interviews to, and I
chose this one guy. And um, he promised me a
front page picture and story and all that. And uh
so I promised that to David and and he was
at sound check the day the paper came out and
(34:11):
he wasn't on the front page, and uh he had
about a quarter of a page, a few pages back
and a photo. And uh, I was mortified because it
was like I had made him to this interview and uh,
uh you know, and not that I had any control
over this person. You never have control when the journalist
(34:34):
tells you that's what's gonna happen unless you get it
in writing or something in contract. But um, so I
had to walk down to the stage, walking down the
center aisle of the empty theater where they was sound checking,
and go up to the stage and call him to
the edge of the stage and show him the paper
and say, you know, I'm really sorry, David, you know.
(34:54):
And I love that moment because he could have you know,
I I've seen other stars could slap you in the
face and say, you idiot, why did you ever let
me bother? But he just went, don't worry about it, Cherry,
It's okay. Like that, And the way he took it
so easily, and so the way he recognized already that
(35:17):
this was not the biggest thing in life. Like when
you're a big rock star, you know everything you do
you think it's the big This this is what I've
experienced with other big stars anyway. They think everything they
do is big and if you don't get it right,
you should be fired or slapped in the face, or
you punished or you know what I mean, They get ego.
The fact that he just was took it so he sids, Okay,
(35:38):
is if like he didn't say, it's no big deal.
But it's just like, this is not the end of
the world, Cherry, It's just a newspaper, you know. I
who loved that about him. And then, of course, about
a couple of hours or an hour or two, I
forgot how long later, a special edition of the newspaper
was put out and he was on the cover and
it was all about him. So yeah and so, and
(36:00):
then I was able to go to him and like
I had scored. Now he could have like slapped me
in the face earlier in the day and then I'd
come back to him with this and I'd be like,
he'd have to have his tail between his legs, but
instead his attitude just made it also made him so human.
It was a human moment with him, a very human moment.
(36:22):
And so that stands out in my mind a lot,
that moment. So um, yeah. But the night I had
sex with him the first time was also really great.
Do you can care to elaborate anymore on that or
I did in my book. I did in my book. Um,
it was just beautiful. I mean. The thing about David
(36:45):
is that when you were with him and he was
giving you his attention. If he had decided, you know
that that time was dedicated to you. He was really
giving you his attention. Whether that's just what great actor
he is. It was um, but you really felt like
(37:06):
you were making love. It wasn't just when you were
the pr lady and working with him and you happened
to be in the same hotel with him that night,
and he hadn't picked up any other girl, so come on,
let's go to bed, Jerry. I mean, um, it just um.
He made you really feel like he wanted to make
love to you and and that he adored it and
(37:28):
was having a wonderful time. And it was nice. It
was very um, touching and uh intimate and in in
in in feelings. Now, if those feelings were genuine or
he was just a great actor, I don't know, But
in those moments you don't care because just you know,
(37:51):
just yeah, baby, you know, I'm having a great time too.
So it was. It was just very lovely, very lovely,
and and kind of funny in a way. You go
back to my book, you can read it because read
about the bandages. It was kind of funny. But that's
all I'll say. Um, but uh. And there were a
(38:12):
couple of other sexual times with him in my apartment
or something, but um, they were all wonderful. They were wonderful.
He was great too, you know the other times that
stand out, which I did write in the book about
a lot with him. When I had this apartment on
twentieth Street, after I didn't work for main men anymore.
Bowie was in his coke period and I had hooked
(38:33):
him up with Norman Fischer, who was the biggest best
coke dealer in New York and everything. And he was
at that point just doing tons of coke, drinking only milk,
not eating anything skinny as a rail that's in white duke.
And he was like sort of getting beyond the rocks
(38:53):
with Tony Differ, like it was coming to and he
needed somebody to talk to a lot, And so he
would come over to my loft I had on Twentieth
Street between nine and ten. He'd come over there, and
I didn't do coke. Rarely did I ever do coke.
I was a pothead, And so we would stay up
all night and not having sex. Once in a while
(39:15):
we had sex, but rarely. Mostly it was just talking
and and he would do his coke all night and
and and drink his milk, and I would drink coffee
and smoke pot and stay up talking to him all night.
And and of course he talked to me about, you know,
his feelings about you know, because Tony it had come
(39:37):
to that point where he felt, you know, giving ton
wasn't cool. I don't know, that was starting to have things,
although I think it all turned out all right in
the end anyway. But so he'd talked about that, about
main ma'am, what was going on about things. But really
we talked about you know, Alistair Crowley and Marilyn and
(40:02):
magic and psychedelics and spirituality. And he knew history a
lot better than igent, So he would talk about Hitler
and a lot of things. He'd educate me on a
lot of things and other things I knew about, and
you know, um astrology and witchcraft and you know, things
like that. So they were wonderful times with him, because
(40:24):
you know, he was on coke, so he would just
go on and on and on out into the stratosphere
with his mind, you know. And I was sitting there
smoking my pots, so everything just seemed magical and fabulous
to me, and and I that they were wonderful moments.
They were wonderful moments, and I didn't work for him anymore.
(40:45):
So I had now had the experience of meeting him
as a fellow artist and a friend, and then being
a worker for him, and now back to being a
friend and artist fellow artists kind of friend with him.
So I didn't have the rules that maybe I had
to play by or set for myself when I worked
(41:06):
for him and stuff. So it was kind of a
freeing of our relationship in a way too. It was like,
and you know, while I worked for him, I couldn't
say anything bad or negative about Maine Man or uh
and about some people we worked with it. But now
I was just a friend, so you know, those things,
the rules weren't there for me anymore. So that was
(41:28):
wonderful moments. Yeah, did you follow David's career after you
stopped working with him at Maine Man. Isn't it fantastic
how he did his whole death and it was an
artist right to the end. And god, I just I
(41:49):
couldn't believe what he did with that last album, Oh,
with Black Star, I mean it's supernatural almost, I mean
not almost. I think it is supernatural how he he
reorchestrated that on on his terms. It's it's I know,
and it's just I can't put it on without you know. Yeah,
I've only listened to the album twice because I just
(42:11):
break down crying when he's saying, look at me, I'm
in Heaven. I'm like, oh, you know, it's just too much.
It's just too much, you know. I tried to sing
Heroes on stage one night and a little show we
did in Hollywood, and I broke down crying on stage.
I couldn't even sing it. It was just it was
it was only about three weeks after he died. It
(42:32):
was just too fresh, I guess, and I hadn't really cried. Uh,
And all of a sudden it all hit me, you know.
But what an iconic life, right to Lee end doing
that album and that play and everything. I never got
to see the play. Did you see the play? I
wish I did. I would have loved it. If I
couldn't get tickets, Ah, he didn't know me, then I
(42:56):
couldn't have got I probably couldn't have got your tickets anyway,
because I didn't really have the relationship with him for
the last I don't know, thirty years or something. Though
when I did, um, I did ask for There was
a you know, I used to do those My World
columns by David Bowie from the magazine. So when somebody
(43:17):
wanted to publish a book, hat Chet Publishing in Paris
wanted to publish a book of them, and um, they
they put they sent me this this sample book and
um whatever you call that first book you get and
they had used what Bowie wrote on his website about
them as like a forward. And I said, well, you
(43:37):
can't just do this, you have to ask permission. I mean,
surely that's his copyright. He wrote that on it. So
they said, oh, will you ask him? And I hadn't,
you know, spoken to him in all those years, and
I didn't speak to him then, but I must say
I called his manager of the time, and within twenty
four hours they called back and said, oh sure, he said,
(44:00):
go ahead, I use them. So that was, you know, lovely,
although I wasn't you know, I wish that I had
had more contact with them over the years, but you know,
people move on, They move on. I love those those
those pieces you wrote. They're so fun, they're so well
written that I love when you put in like my
(44:20):
my incredible publicist Jerry Vanelle, I love when you put
the whole shout outs to yourself. And you know, there
was no I didn't. I wasn't even very much of
an accomplished writer in any way yet, And there was
no time. I wrote those in the back of limos
and taxi said. There was no editing, there was no
nothing that you know, they were just as fast as
they could. I could write them down and give them
(44:41):
to a type of store, type them up myself if
I was in the office, and just make up things.
And sometimes i'd have like a phone conversation with him
and try to find out what he was doing that
week and incorporated. But half the time I just had
to make them up. But but yeah, they were fun
and they were just you know, they were for a
teenage girl audience, you know, not preteens. Actually that magazine
(45:03):
was aimed at like eleven twelve year old girls. What
a great audience to build, right, So, speaking of writing
your memoir, Lick Me is amazing. It's filled with so
many fascinating stories, and it's amazing how candid and intimate
you are, like you really went there and got into
so many tough and vulnerable moments. I really loved the book. God,
(45:24):
I wish I had a million more fans like you.
I mean, I didn't sell that many books, you know,
And but then again I don't try. I mean, you know,
it's funny because publicity was, you know, like sex to
me in the early days. I I loved doing publicity
for other people and myself. But you know, I kind
of it's almost like when I gave up sex, I
(45:47):
gave up publicity. I kind of like went the other way. Like,
you know, I kind of hide now, you know what
I mean. I don't have to hide because I can
be totally unrecognizable in the world, you know, which I
love that. And so it's funny. I'm like, not that
I'm anti publicity, but I love to do interviews like
(46:09):
this once in a while. But um, you know, I
don't like my friend Pamela Dabars, who got me the
the agent to do the book. She really milks her books.
I mean, she writes one book after another, and then
she goes on and she has she teaches women's writing classes,
and she goes on these things where you sign pictures
(46:29):
of yourself and sell them for ten dollars and bless
her heart. I really admire her for doing that. But
I was like, yeah, the book was done, it's done.
It's out there now though some people are trying to
make a movie of it or a TV show. So
now my energy is going there. I'm trying to, um,
give them ideas, help them, um and uh so we'll
(46:51):
see what happens. That is so cool. How's that going? Well?
You know, that could take forever. The guy who's trying
to do it, he's produced one movie, freak show. Did
youivverssy Freak Show? Yeah, with Bette Midler's he Brian Raybin.
He he ran Club Cherry. He's famous event person in
(47:13):
rock and roll. He had Club Cherry and oh god,
he just had a Georgio at the Standard and for
years and and he um he I gave him the
rights to sell it. Now I know how Hollywood goes.
And I think he has great tenacity and he's the
person I would want to be the producer because he
he really gets me, and he knows he lived through
(47:35):
the whole thing, and he really gets the whole period.
And and um he's a little younger than me, but
he gets it all. He's got incredible tenacity and incredible
connections because all those years that he ran those clubs
and did those events, you know, he was in charge
of you know, who got behind the velvet rope, who
(47:56):
got on the list. So a lot of people who
he recognized something in back then they were young fledglings
since became agents, writers, producers, directors, you know what I mean, stars,
actors in Hollywood, rock stars started. So he has a
(48:16):
lot of great connections with the people I like in
that in that whole world. I love his circle of
people that he's recognized, like Norman Reads and you know
people I find really I don't know, just on a
level of artistry that I appealed to me, and so
he's out there doing it now. I know it'll get
(48:38):
done one day. I would love it to happen before
I die, so I could go, you know, enjoy premiers
and all that kind of stuff. But it it might
not get done to lefter I die, And I don't
know if they'll get to make it a movie or
a TV series. I don't know. They're they're trying, and
they're hooking up with I talked to I'm not allowed
to name her yet, but I took to one producer
(49:02):
via Zoom via a zoom meeting, and she's pretty big.
She's produced a lot of TV stuff and movies, and
she's very interested. You know, it's some people don't get
it that. You know, why was I with all of
these unbelievable people all my life? You know? Why me?
Is kind of an interesting story, you know. And I
(49:23):
don't know. I know they'll find the right people and
click with them eventually. And this producer she I think
now they've found the writer who will do what they
called the Bible, and he's thinking more movie. I think
it needs to be a TV series because by the
time you get all those people in there who are famous,
who I've had something to do with. I don't know.
(49:46):
It's kind of a long movie. But I don't know what.
I don't care how they do it, and I told
them I'll help them. I've been like, any time I
think of a little scene in my head, I sent
it to them. Nut. I don't think I'm capable really
of writing the screenplay about myself. I think it needs
an objective writer in blah blah blah, And I've never
really written a screenplay except in school and stuff. So um.
(50:09):
But they asked me if I would like write scenes
when I think of them and send them to them
just to kind of give them idea. And I do that,
and I and like, now they're trying to get to
the essence of the cell of me, the hook, Like
what's what's the essence of me that they can sell
to a network or something. So I'm always trying to
give them little ideas about that too. Like the intimacy thing.
(50:29):
That's why I was talking to you about it when
we first got on, because that's what I had been
thinking about. What was it about you know, I was
looking at the Bowie movie and I was thinking, what
was it about me that would make like a young
girl now think she would want to have my life?
Because I wasn't the biggest star in the world. True.
I wasn't the you know, biggest saint Theresa or scholarship
(50:52):
scientist or you know whatever. Um. But I think the
intimacy that I had mentally and sexually with men is
of interest to young women now because I think women
want to have that intimacy with men and be able
to have that. It doesn't have to just be sexual
between a woman and a man. It's great when you
(51:13):
can collaborate on things and write songs together, and you know,
do radio interviews together, and you know, having that kind
of without you know, the threat that there has to
be sex at the at the end of the night
from either the man or the woman. That's it's a
(51:35):
new kind of intimacy. I think it's kind of cool,
so anyway, But they will make it one day. I
truly believe in my heart they will get this thing made.
But I hope I'm alive because I want to go
to the parties. Off the record of the production of
(51:57):
I Heart Radio. If you liked what you heard, please
obscue hibe and leave us a review. For more podcasts
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Off the Record is a production of I Heart Radio.
Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of Off the Record.
My name's Jordan Runtuck. Thanks so much for listening. Our
latest chapter concerns the rise of Ziggy Stardust, Bowie's breakthrough
persona that would become arguably his most enduring artistic legacy.
(00:20):
The androgynous alien poet Messiah took inspiration from various elements
of David's past interests and present obsessions, ranging from pulpy
fifty sci fi TV shows to rock and roll burnouts,
a cult American country act, Eastern philosophies, and an overall
interest in show business artifice. Ziggy was, as David would
(00:41):
later say, his grand kitch painting. David developed the concept
throughout much of nine, but it's fair to say that
Ziggy Stardust would have turned out quite different without the
involvement of some new friends he met that August. They
were an unabashedly outrageous gang of actors and performers from
Andy Warhol's fact recene in downtown Manhattan. They traveled to
(01:03):
England to perform Warhol's extremely off Broadway play Pork, The
groundbreaking avant garde productions shocked audiences by taking aim at
pretty much every social taboo you could imagine, and maybe
a few they can. It was innovative, it was funny,
and it was brave. David loved it, and he loved
the cast even more. He was entranced by their bold
(01:25):
attitude and style, an unmissable blend of gritty New York
Street and gaudy old Hollywood clamor. They appreciated david Zone
artistic fearlessness and deep interest in theatrical production, dating back
to his days studying mime under Lindsay Kemp. In short,
they were kindred spirits. The Port crowd would have a
marked effect on David's life and career, changing his relationship
(01:47):
to performance and inspiring him to new creative heights. They
also had a hand in launching him into the pop stratosphere.
David's manager, Tony de Freeze, tapped the Warhol Lights to
head up the New York office of his management company MainMan.
Though if you had any actual business experience, they improvised. Hey,
they were performers after all. I'm so thrilled to talk
(02:10):
to a genuine Warhol superstar and legend of the alternative
art scene. Ms Cherry Vanilla. A list of her accomplishments
is practically a podcast series in itself. I highly encourage
you to check out her two thousand ten memoir Lick Me.
She's a DJ, an actress, an activist, a poet, and
a punk rock pioneer whose first backing band, Lady, revolved
(02:30):
into the Police. After starring in the London production of Pork,
she was hired to work at Maineman as Bowie's public
relations manager. Unlike most of her Warhol compatriots, she actually
had a substantial professional background, having worked in the real
life Madman world of advertising in the mid sixties. The
experience would come in handy when promoting David to the world.
(02:51):
It was she who crafted some of the tall tales
that surround his legend to this day. For a glorious
stretch in the early seventies, she and David were friends, lovers,
and artistic comrades. I'm so excited to share her story
of how she helped launch the Starman into orbit. I
(03:12):
was trying to write an introduction for you, and I
didn't know where to begin. I mean DJ Warhol, superstar Bowie, publicist,
rock singer, author, artist, I mean I didn't know where
to start. You know, Um, I really sometimes I mean
I've med hung out with, had relationships with, you know,
mental or physical with you know, iconic artists, you know
(03:35):
Van Gillis and um oh God, going all the way
back in my life to you know Donnamici when I
was a child, and Joel Schumacher filmmaker and a artist.
And but you know, the two that have become so
iconic are Bowie and Warhol. And I can't believe how
iconic they've become. They are more than just you know,
(04:00):
like the greatest artist of our generation. But they've achieved
this uh stature of changing society in a way and
giving lots of odd ball kids and artists a whole
new outlook on life. They've really reached the status. And
I can't believe I had. You know, this intimacy was
(04:22):
each of them, you know, with Bowie both mental and physical,
and with Warhol just kind of mental and you know,
really mental in both ways. But um you know, I'm
the garbage man's daughter, you know what I mean. And
I think the value of my life now that I'm
seventy seven and I can like really start looking back
(04:45):
on it is the intimacy I achieved with so many
of these men. And I'm thinking how because I gave
up sex at forty and that changed my relationship with men.
But I think women would love most women would love
to have mental relationships with men, and I think a
(05:05):
lot of men, I don't know. It's not as offered
to women as much as sexual intimacy, you know what
I mean. And I think that's the whole thing with
the whole groupie ear a thing like what was offered
to you in the short time you ever got to
encounter these people. They were going to be in town
for twenty four hours or something, and that could be it.
(05:25):
So what was offered was sexual intimacy, And so I
think as a groupie, you just said, okay, I'll take it,
because then there'll be that many more hours I'll be
there to try to have some mental intimacy with him,
which was so much more valuable, which is what you
wanted so much more. And then of course creative intimacy
with other artists. And in my case, I don't know,
(05:48):
it seemed to be men in a way. I don't
know why. That was a couple of women here and
there who I worked with or whatever. But I look
back at it now and I think that's what I
was so lucky to have, was that kind of and
I still have it. And as I said, once I
gave up sex, I started to have it even more
(06:10):
because when you're not putting out a sexual vibe, you're
not scaring men either, you know what I mean, especially
if you're putting one out in your seventies. God God knows.
But so, yeah, it's been it's been an interesting trip.
And I'm looking back at it, like you know these
days and saying, well, you know, what was my life worth?
(06:31):
And and there are some people trying to make a
movie of my life, so they're always asking me those questions,
you know, and why you and blah blah blah. So
I'm always thinking about it for them anyway. Yeah, I
wouldn't trade it with anybody, really, I don't think so.
Now I was rereading your book and the path of
(06:52):
your life is just so incredible. Take it back to
the very beginning. How did this all start for you?
Growing up as a little Irish Catholic girl in Queens
to Madison Avenue and getting involved with the theater of
the Ridiculous and getting cast in pork. Tell me how
it all began for you. Well, the Copacabana had a
big influence on me, because otherwise I wouldn't have known
the life outside of Queens that I knew my father
(07:15):
working for the sanitation department. But because my mother was
a telephone operator where the copa was, um, I got
to see like glussy, glamorous nightlife and incredible entertainers. When
I was, you know, six seven years old, my father started,
you know, letting me watch the shows and everything, and
(07:35):
that gave me another vision, like a dream life. And
I couldn't even really say it to my family. Couldn't.
In my family, Irish Catholic, working class, we nobody called
themselves an artist, you know. You just didn't say, learn
how to type, forget about them, or get married, you know.
(07:59):
So I had to kind of keep it to myself
in a way. Although I took dance lessons and was
in all the plays in school and all that kind
of stuff. But when I graduated high school, I was seventeen.
It was nineteen sixty one. My parents didn't have the
money to sent me to college. I certainly wasn't a
scholarship winner, and so and it was assumed, you know,
(08:24):
you're just gonna get married, will be a secretary anyway,
so just get out there and work. Advertising was still
like a very glamorous field, kind of Doris day Rock
cousin movie material and stuff and Madison Avenue. So and
I had a boyfriend in my senior year in high
school and he was he worked at an ad agency.
(08:47):
So I got a job there and that was Sullivan
stuff with Cola and Bellis was my first job. And
it was fabulous, you know, it was a fabulous world.
And it was know a cushy job. I mean, my family,
everybody worked so hard at what they did, and advertising
(09:07):
was cushy. I mean there was so many coffee breaks
and long lunches and cocktails at five, the amount of
hours you put in every day unless you were on
a TV shoot or something. And there were handsome young
men and it was kind of a great field. So
I really enjoyed it, and so I kind of moved
up in it, you know, when when they're an opportunity arose.
(09:30):
There was a lesbian woman actually who was a producer,
and I was like a lowly I had a lowly
job in the radio TV production department, but she was
leaving and she saw my value and she started training me.
And when she left, I took her job and I
became a radio TV producer. And I was like, I
(09:50):
don't know, a nineteen twenty top. Yeah, yeah, you know.
I went to school. I went to the New School
UM for so sual research at night with Arnald Eagle
was the teacher. And but I kind of dropped out
after a while because I was learning so much more
on the job and that's kind of always how I
(10:12):
seemed to learn best. And I was loving it. I
loved the whole you know, radio TV process, mechanical process
side of it, entertainment side, I loved all of it.
So that's how I did that, and I stayed. I
actually had like a full time advertising job for eight years,
and then you know, as time went on, I got
(10:35):
interested in theater of the ridiculous, and pretty much I
was only freelancing for like I would just do a
TV production job something when I needed the money. But
I was more already into like theater and music, and
I had already moved on from advertising, and you know,
(10:55):
that's how I then started. I was in one little
play and then Andy warholsa on the in it, and
when he took Pork to London in ninev one, he
didn't like the girl who was playing the lead in
the New York Pork. I wasn't in Pork in New York,
and so I auditioned for him and I got the
(11:17):
lead to play the pork in the in the play
in London, and that's where we met David Bowie and
you know, on and on from there. So it's quite
quite an honesty. How did you you first enter David's orbit?
When you were when you got to England. Well, we
(11:38):
got a lot of publicity when we went with Pork
because we were Warhol people, and so we were in
the newspapers a lot and all of that. And he
was not yet that famous. He had had space authority,
but he had three or four albums already that you know,
just didn't make it. He was he was still playing
little teeny clubs and stuff like that. So we were
(12:01):
like unequal footing artistically. In fact, we were like kind
of bigger than he was at that moment in a way,
you know what I mean. We were we had all
the publicity and you know, Warhol comes to London. Although
they ripped just to shreds. But but anyway, so he
knew of us, and we knew of him because Lee
(12:22):
Children's kept up a lot with um the press, because
he took photographs for a lot of rock magazines in
America and stuff, and he had heard of David Bowie.
David Bowie had come to America a couple of years
earlier on like a radio interview tour. He couldn't do
any gigs because the work permits, but he did like
a radio tour, so some people knew about him. I
(12:44):
didn't know about him then. Most people didn't know about him.
And Tiny Piece and Rolling Stone about him that Lee
had seen. And we were on our way to rehearsal
for Pork one day in London and we saw a
poster for him playing at a little club, the Country Club,
and so we went to see him that night, Lee Schilder's,
Jane County and me and it was him on acoustic guitar,
(13:10):
Rick Wakeman on piano, and Mick Ronson on electric guitar
and people sat on the floor. It was like, you know,
kind of a hippie club and it was well, it
was just past the hippie era, sort of and he
still had like long blonde hair and more you know, pleaded,
kind of silky pants and yellow Mary James and I
(13:31):
an't sure if Hunky Dorry was out already or had
just been recorded, but they were already writing songs and
Phyziggie started us, so he was in between that he
played mostly Hunky Dorry stuff. And she didn't have a
drummer or a bass player or anything, so I guess,
and that ziggy stuff hadn't come out yet, so it's
kind of in that era. And and she was there
(13:53):
and she did the lights and the sound, and so
we went up to her and introduced ourselves and said,
you know, we're in the cast of Andy Warhol's Pork.
It's called David. I love to meet you, darlings, Lola,
Lola so and he had written that song, Andy Warhol,
and so when he did it on stage, he introduced
(14:14):
us as the cast members and asked us to stand
up and take about so we did. I popped out
one tip, which was some gesture I did all through
the play because I was playing the part of Bridget Pulk,
Bridget Berlin. And that's how Polk comes from Pork comes
from Polk. Whatever, And in real life she was always
(14:34):
like jabbing a needle with speed and right through her
jeans and popping out one tit. So that was like
a gesture I did in the play. And so afterwards
we went to a discotheque together and we all danced
and hung out, and then they came to see the
play one night, along with Jannegspie and Tony DeFries, and
(14:56):
of course they came backstage, and then we all went
out again and we we hung out and then invited
us to their house Fatigue, and we'd go out there
for tea on a Sunday afternoon, and so we all
became friends in that way. And Pork lasted like a month,
and then it was supposed to move to the West
End and we never did, and so we all kind
(15:20):
of went our separate ways after that. But you know,
we could see what he could be. You know, he
was so talented and so charismatic that you know, we
could see this was a guy we should tell everybody
about back home, and so we did, and Tony Zanetta
(15:41):
got to be really good friends with him, maybe even
better friends than us. More quickly they related, and so
then in September of seventy two, when Tony DeFries was
managing David and In in England and decided it was
time to bring him to America to tour. He hired
(16:04):
Tony Zanetta to be like the head of main man
the management company, and Tony basically called me up one day.
I was living in Connecticut, I think, with the Berkshires.
He called me up one day and I wasn't working.
I was probably writing but not earning any money, and
he said, oh, we could use somebody to answer the phones.
(16:25):
We just got a little office on fifty Street and
manotte night. So I said, okay. So I went to
New York and I, you know, was taking on the
job supposedly of answering the phones. But you know, I
had background in first of all, I had my high
school was like a business school, so I had background
(16:46):
in all the business machines and proper letter writing and
all that other kind of stuff. And Tony and the
other people around Jeffries and David at the time when
David was still in England, but they didn't that kind
of sort of practical office experienced and in corporate structure
that I had known. So all of a sudden I
(17:09):
was like you know, ordering fax machines and desks and
typewriters and telephone service and show for service and you know,
so I was like running the office. And then little
by little we were adding people to help. And then
when David, when Tony brought David over for the first tour, Tony,
Zanetta and Lee Childrens went out on the road with
(17:31):
him and I at the beginning, I stayed behind to
run the office and have them check in with me
and keep everything going. And then eventually I got an
assistant and I heard somebody and then because Tony Jeffries
wouldn't let the press talk to David Bowie because he
kept it like they couldn't get access, so they got
(17:54):
to talk to me, and uh and since I seem
to be a knack trail at that, you know, even
though we didn't have the internet and everything, so I
didn't even know that much about David back then. I mean,
it was crazy because everything was going so fast, So
I just made up a lot of facts when they'd
asked me things that because truly it was there was
(18:17):
no time. I mean I was also taken care of,
like like I would go ahead if they were going
to go to a certain city. I would go ahead
by a week or something to that city, and I'd
get myself on the radio and you know, do interviews
and stuff so that we could drum up ticket sales.
So then I would go on to the next city,
(18:37):
and I would also like do little bibles for them,
like where the dry cleaner was, where the late night
bar was, where the best Indian restaurant. What you know.
I was doing all these little chores, uh, and publicity,
and then I would go on to the next city.
But then because I wanted to see all the shows,
I would fly back to the other city where I
(18:59):
had just been to catch the show because I didn't
want to miss a show because you know that that
was like the most fabulous time. That was ziggy star
dost time, you know, the most fabulous time. Gorgeous young
David and gorgeous young Nick. And so I was on planes,
you know. I remember one day. I was on three
(19:20):
planes that day, three different cities that day. Um, yeah,
and you know, and I loved it. I loved it.
I loved it, and I love being able to see
all the shows. And um, I missed one or two.
I missed New Orleans. I never got to New Orleans.
Isn't this funny? I'm still never have been to New Orleans.
I've got to get there one day. But um, I
(19:41):
missed a couple of cities here and there. But that's
mostly how it happened. And then um, from there, you know,
that was it? Bowie rose like a star and uh
that we knew he was thinking of all the promotional
(20:03):
work you were doing and try to hype David. Was
he a hard sell in nineteen two or do people
catch on quickly that this was somebody to take notice of? Well,
thanks to my publicity. The thing is, the thing is
he came at a certain time when the sexuality look,
sexuality is always going to grab people. And I didn't
(20:26):
have I didn't even know how to do PR. I
knew how to do advertising, but PR for Rock Stop
R for anybody I never did, it was a little different.
And I didn't have a strategy. None of us had,
even DeFries didn't have. He had his own strategy for management.
But he didn't really have a PR strategy except well
(20:46):
he did in a way because like he had karate
clad um uniform bodyguards you know around David. But nobody
has been trying to get near David, you know what
I mean. And he told the press that David wouldn't
do any interviews even though they weren't banging down the
doors for interviews. So yes, he did, he did. I
(21:07):
shouldn't say that about because he did. We all played
a part in the pr but on the sexuality, and
which I knew would get the talk going. You know,
there was this edge where people wondered was he gayo straight?
Everybody wondered was he gayo straight? You know, so that
I knew was like a point to get people talking,
(21:30):
especially the people I knew in in New York and
Los Angeles and all that. And so as time went on,
when he said he was bisexual and and I at
the same time was saying he was great sex being
a woman, and I'm so I'm sort of intimating he
was heatero And then he's saying he's by and then
somebody else says, uh, he's gay, And so I think
(21:54):
that helped boost the publicity a lot. And then Tony's
Tony different his genius which he was at management and
um and you know, all of us together Lee children
doing all the photos and Tony another managing the tours,
and you know, we were actors, so we looked at
(22:17):
it like improvisation, like we were given a play to play,
and it was total improv for all of us. And
in a way that maybe is what made it so
different and so fresh and so new seeming and stuff,
because we didn't really know what we were doing. We
just loved him, believed in him. We're having a ball,
(22:38):
getting paid hardly any money at all. We were doing
this for the love of it, which corny as it sounds.
When you do something for the love of it, that's
real success, you know. So you know that's the way
it went. And it was, you know, wonderful, marvelous, incredible
time in our lives, you know, an incredible time and
(22:58):
we were young and hot, and you know, we were
having a ball. So, um, I forgot your question, whatever
it was you answered it. I just there's a great
quote you gave it an interview once that I love
life presents people to me and I say yes or no.
What made you say yes to David Bowie? What was
(23:19):
it about him that attracted him to you? Well, first
of all, I think there's a thing called pheromones and
aura and a spirit body so I think there's a
chemical element and a spiritual element in what people like.
I meet a lot of people, and some people I
can't remember their name after ten times meeting them, and
other people, the minute you know you've experienced this too.
(23:41):
The minute you meet them, like you know, there's something
this person is going to be in your life. So
there was that, But of course I didn't meet him
right away. I saw him on stage the first I
was in the audience, So the first thing I saw
was his artistry and his he was just born to
(24:02):
do it. He was just born to be a rock
star when he came out on the stage, even though
he he didn't have all the ziggy look together yet,
which really helped, you know, him sell himself to the public.
He was born to be a rock star. You just
saw it. You knew it. The way he related musically.
You know, he could play the guitar. He had a
(24:24):
beautiful voice, His songs had some even humor in them.
His lyrics were fabulous. His connection with the audience was instant,
and you could tell everybody just you could hear a
pin drop in the room and it was just a
little club. So he already had that aura he already
(24:44):
had that thing, so that was on stage. So then
when afterwards when we got to meet him up close,
you know, the vibration was right there, this vibration of like, yeah,
this person, I'm I'm not letting this person go. This
person is going to be in my life, you know,
And so I can't explain it any other way than that.
(25:05):
And plus he was so down to earth and friendly
and funny and easy to meet. It was easy. He
was easy, He was comfortable. You know, we were comfortable
with him, and he was comfortable with us, and he
treated us like equal artists or even you know whatever.
And I guess, you know, it was just that thing
(25:28):
that one can't really explain what it was. It was
just something I knew that, you know, we all knew.
Although Jane County and Lee they afterwards when everybody talked
for them, he wasn't rock and roll enough, and so
they were a little bit like, oh, he's kind of
a hippie folk singer. But I knew because Mick Ronson
(25:50):
was going to make a more rock and roll and
even though I hadn't heard the ziggy stardust stuff yet,
with guitars and drums and all that kind of stuff.
You knew that with mc ronson he was going to
be more electric soon and and that he had to
go that way in a way to be the rock
star I envisioned, and so I I saw that immediately,
(26:14):
and they were like okay. But then of course they
saw and they saw the other aspect of him, you know,
the charisma for sure. And I like the guys you
hung out with her awakeman and Nick Ronson. In fact,
I thought Nick Ronson was you know, oh my god.
I was so you know, sexually attracted to Mick more
(26:35):
than David. But but that's because David had a wife also,
and um, you know she was there. But but Mick
I scared to death. I never had sex with McK ronson,
but I became because I came on so heavy from
New York with the sexuality. And Mick is is such
a you know, such a small town boy from Hall.
(26:57):
I mean, have you ever been to Hall? I have not.
It's in the very northern tip of the UK, about
of England rather, and it's really I mean, he was
a small town boy, you know, and I was coming
on like, you know, right away, wanting to go to
bed with him. That night, you know, and that just
was too much for him. But we became friends, of course,
(27:18):
and uh and I just adored him, Oh God, I
adored him. So anyway, Um, yeah, that's that's what I
So what do you think that that David learned from
all of you? I feel like you were such a
huge influence on his life as well as as as
him on yours. What do you feel like that that
he got from all of you. It seems like you
(27:40):
gave him permission in a lot of ways to be
more himself and confidence and that's what he gave to,
you know, the world, to two kids who were confused
about whatever their sexuality or you know, they're being a
nerd or whatever. But um, first of all, on a
(28:01):
I don't know, geographic basis, he always wanted to know
more about New York. I think he liked lou Reid
and all of that, and he had made that one
trip to America, and he liked our New York Street
nous that we would like New York Street urchins, actors
in the kind of theater, like the kind of theater
(28:23):
we had been doing in New York was like on
the same level he was doing in London with Lindsey Kemp.
You know, it was small theaters, nobody made any money.
He made your own costumes, and you know, it was
far out avant garde kind of and so I think
that interested him that we were like we were kind
of doing the same thing. I was wasn't mine, his
(28:45):
was mine, but it was on the same level and
it was like off off Broadway, and so he wanted
he wanted information about that, and he wanted to be associated,
I think with that kind of artistry and theatricality and also, um,
(29:07):
you know, the American nous of us in a way
um and you know, on a on a business level,
like how radio worked in America, how the uh newspapers
worked Ina Like in England, you know how the newspapers are.
They're national, so you get you getting one year, you're
a star in the country. But in America the radio
(29:29):
and the and the newspapers and stuff are also regional
or war then, you know, and so you have to
do it for a lot of different regions, for a
lot of different types of people in America in each
city you visit and so forth, and you have to
learn to relate to a lot of people in different
ways and stuff, and and our freedom I think are
(29:50):
are Although we thought we were so free sexually, but
when we got to England to London, we were We
met a lot of people and including the Bowies and
a lot other people who were you know, already way
free sexually. They just called it kinky over there, you know.
And but I think the fact that he could be
himself around us, and if it was sexual, it was sexual,
(30:13):
and if it was business, it was business. And and
the fact that we could all play these different roles
with him, you know, and uh, and yet kind of
be on his level. Of course, he rose to stardom
way above any level we ever achieved of stardom, but
we kind of always stayed on that same thing where
we were friends on an intimate on many levels, like
(30:35):
getting back to that intimacy thing of mental intimacy. We
could exchange ideas, we could understand, you know. I remember
once I worked I wouldn't say who it was, but
I did some work once for a famous director and
I said, what is it you need from me? He said,
I need somebody who anticipates my needs. And then went, oh, okay,
(30:58):
that's to say and very nail things to say right,
and but it got me, you know, on my toes.
And so in a way, we we had a shorthand
with each other when it came to show Bisbowie and us,
you know. And so even if it was like arranging
the tour bus or you know, make sure his clothes
(31:18):
came back from the cleaners, or you know, we got
to do it with you know, fellow artists and friends,
and and we didn't mind all this practicality that I
had to go with it. That was just the business
side of it. So I think he probably appreciated that
in us, you know, And we never had like big
egos about it. Like people often say to me now,
(31:40):
like oh, well, you maye Bowie say this. I said,
no way. I was part of a team of a
lot of people. And when you get a lot of
people together and that their energies all going the same direction,
that's how you achieve things. And so I was a
part of it. I would never take big credit like
I did this. I made him a star in no way.
(32:02):
So I think it was that like we were all
in a play together. He was in the place, like
we lived our lives like in a play. Okay, I'm
going to play the role of the pr lady now
and I play the role of a tour manager now
and a president of may man or whatever Tony's not.
It was playing and and he was playing the part
of the rock star, and we all improvised our roles,
(32:24):
you know. So I think that must have kept him
interested and excited as us, as much as we were
interested and excited in him, you know. And then of
course one day he moved on from us and learned
things from other people, but we moved on from him also,
So you know, that's the way it goes in this
play that you're all performing. Is there a climax for you?
(32:45):
Is there a moment that really crystallizes everything, that is
just the golden moment that you hold on to. Oh,
it was the first time I had sex with him,
for sure. That's a good more literal climax than I met,
but very good. Well on the mental climax part, Yeah,
I tell us a little story in the book and
it really meant a lot to me. Um, And it
(33:07):
wasn't any great creative thing we did together or worked out.
I mean, I really got off on making the TV
commercials on him for Diamond doggs and stuff like that.
That was great because I was taking my expertise and
experience at the time and with very little money making
you know, TV commercials for him and radio commercials and stuff,
(33:29):
and that I took great pride in. And but um,
there was a moment that I loved a lot. And
it was when we were in London and he was
doing a show in London. Um, and I was in
charge of who he was allowed to talk to in
the press, and everybody wanted an interview. This is when
he was already had become pretty big. Everybody wanted an interview.
(33:50):
So I chose, you know, the two or three people
that we were going to give interviews to, and I
chose this one guy. And um, he promised me a
front page picture and story and all that. And uh
so I promised that to David and and he was
at sound check the day the paper came out and
(34:11):
he wasn't on the front page, and uh he had
about a quarter of a page, a few pages back
and a photo. And uh, I was mortified because it
was like I had made him to this interview and uh,
uh you know, and not that I had any control
over this person. You never have control when the journalist
(34:34):
tells you that's what's gonna happen unless you get it
in writing or something in contract. But um, so I
had to walk down to the stage, walking down the
center aisle of the empty theater where they was sound checking,
and go up to the stage and call him to
the edge of the stage and show him the paper
and say, you know, I'm really sorry, David, you know.
(34:54):
And I love that moment because he could have you know,
I I've seen other stars could slap you in the
face and say, you idiot, why did you ever let
me bother? But he just went, don't worry about it, Cherry,
It's okay. Like that, And the way he took it
so easily, and so the way he recognized already that
(35:17):
this was not the biggest thing in life. Like when
you're a big rock star, you know everything you do
you think it's the big This this is what I've
experienced with other big stars anyway. They think everything they
do is big and if you don't get it right,
you should be fired or slapped in the face, or
you punished or you know what I mean, They get ego.
The fact that he just was took it so he sids, Okay,
(35:38):
is if like he didn't say, it's no big deal.
But it's just like, this is not the end of
the world, Cherry, It's just a newspaper, you know. I
who loved that about him. And then, of course, about
a couple of hours or an hour or two, I
forgot how long later, a special edition of the newspaper
was put out and he was on the cover and
it was all about him. So yeah and so, and
(36:00):
then I was able to go to him and like
I had scored. Now he could have like slapped me
in the face earlier in the day and then I'd
come back to him with this and I'd be like,
he'd have to have his tail between his legs, but
instead his attitude just made it also made him so human.
It was a human moment with him, a very human moment.
(36:22):
And so that stands out in my mind a lot,
that moment. So um, yeah. But the night I had
sex with him the first time was also really great.
Do you can care to elaborate anymore on that or
I did in my book. I did in my book. Um,
it was just beautiful. I mean. The thing about David
(36:45):
is that when you were with him and he was
giving you his attention. If he had decided, you know
that that time was dedicated to you. He was really
giving you his attention. Whether that's just what great actor
he is. It was um, but you really felt like
(37:06):
you were making love. It wasn't just when you were
the pr lady and working with him and you happened
to be in the same hotel with him that night,
and he hadn't picked up any other girl, so come on,
let's go to bed, Jerry. I mean, um, it just um.
He made you really feel like he wanted to make
love to you and and that he adored it and
(37:28):
was having a wonderful time. And it was nice. It
was very um, touching and uh intimate and in in
in in feelings. Now, if those feelings were genuine or
he was just a great actor, I don't know, But
in those moments you don't care because just you know,
(37:51):
just yeah, baby, you know, I'm having a great time too.
So it was. It was just very lovely, very lovely,
and and kind of funny in a way. You go
back to my book, you can read it because read
about the bandages. It was kind of funny. But that's
all I'll say. Um, but uh. And there were a
(38:12):
couple of other sexual times with him in my apartment
or something, but um, they were all wonderful. They were wonderful.
He was great too, you know the other times that
stand out, which I did write in the book about
a lot with him. When I had this apartment on
twentieth Street, after I didn't work for main men anymore.
Bowie was in his coke period and I had hooked
(38:33):
him up with Norman Fischer, who was the biggest best
coke dealer in New York and everything. And he was
at that point just doing tons of coke, drinking only milk,
not eating anything skinny as a rail that's in white duke.
And he was like sort of getting beyond the rocks
(38:53):
with Tony Differ, like it was coming to and he
needed somebody to talk to a lot, And so he
would come over to my loft I had on Twentieth
Street between nine and ten. He'd come over there, and
I didn't do coke. Rarely did I ever do coke.
I was a pothead, And so we would stay up
all night and not having sex. Once in a while
(39:15):
we had sex, but rarely. Mostly it was just talking
and and he would do his coke all night and
and and drink his milk, and I would drink coffee
and smoke pot and stay up talking to him all night.
And and of course he talked to me about, you know,
his feelings about you know, because Tony it had come
(39:37):
to that point where he felt, you know, giving ton
wasn't cool. I don't know, that was starting to have things,
although I think it all turned out all right in
the end anyway. But so he'd talked about that, about
main ma'am, what was going on about things. But really
we talked about you know, Alistair Crowley and Marilyn and
(40:02):
magic and psychedelics and spirituality. And he knew history a
lot better than igent, So he would talk about Hitler
and a lot of things. He'd educate me on a
lot of things and other things I knew about, and
you know, um astrology and witchcraft and you know, things
like that. So they were wonderful times with him, because
(40:24):
you know, he was on coke, so he would just
go on and on and on out into the stratosphere
with his mind, you know. And I was sitting there
smoking my pots, so everything just seemed magical and fabulous
to me, and and I that they were wonderful moments.
They were wonderful moments, and I didn't work for him anymore.
(40:45):
So I had now had the experience of meeting him
as a fellow artist and a friend, and then being
a worker for him, and now back to being a
friend and artist fellow artists kind of friend with him.
So I didn't have the rules that maybe I had
to play by or set for myself when I worked
(41:06):
for him and stuff. So it was kind of a
freeing of our relationship in a way too. It was like,
and you know, while I worked for him, I couldn't
say anything bad or negative about Maine Man or uh
and about some people we worked with it. But now
I was just a friend, so you know, those things,
the rules weren't there for me anymore. So that was
(41:28):
wonderful moments. Yeah, did you follow David's career after you
stopped working with him at Maine Man. Isn't it fantastic
how he did his whole death and it was an
artist right to the end. And god, I just I
(41:49):
couldn't believe what he did with that last album, Oh,
with Black Star, I mean it's supernatural almost, I mean
not almost. I think it is supernatural how he he
reorchestrated that on on his terms. It's it's I know,
and it's just I can't put it on without you know. Yeah,
I've only listened to the album twice because I just
(42:11):
break down crying when he's saying, look at me, I'm
in Heaven. I'm like, oh, you know, it's just too much.
It's just too much, you know. I tried to sing
Heroes on stage one night and a little show we
did in Hollywood, and I broke down crying on stage.
I couldn't even sing it. It was just it was
it was only about three weeks after he died. It
(42:32):
was just too fresh, I guess, and I hadn't really cried. Uh,
And all of a sudden it all hit me, you know.
But what an iconic life, right to Lee end doing
that album and that play and everything. I never got
to see the play. Did you see the play? I
wish I did. I would have loved it. If I
couldn't get tickets, Ah, he didn't know me, then I
(42:56):
couldn't have got I probably couldn't have got your tickets anyway,
because I didn't really have the relationship with him for
the last I don't know, thirty years or something. Though
when I did, um, I did ask for There was
a you know, I used to do those My World
columns by David Bowie from the magazine. So when somebody
(43:17):
wanted to publish a book, hat Chet Publishing in Paris
wanted to publish a book of them, and um, they
they put they sent me this this sample book and
um whatever you call that first book you get and
they had used what Bowie wrote on his website about
them as like a forward. And I said, well, you
(43:37):
can't just do this, you have to ask permission. I mean,
surely that's his copyright. He wrote that on it. So
they said, oh, will you ask him? And I hadn't,
you know, spoken to him in all those years, and
I didn't speak to him then, but I must say
I called his manager of the time, and within twenty
four hours they called back and said, oh sure, he said,
(44:00):
go ahead, I use them. So that was, you know, lovely,
although I wasn't you know, I wish that I had
had more contact with them over the years, but you know,
people move on, They move on. I love those those
those pieces you wrote. They're so fun, they're so well
written that I love when you put in like my
(44:20):
my incredible publicist Jerry Vanelle, I love when you put
the whole shout outs to yourself. And you know, there
was no I didn't. I wasn't even very much of
an accomplished writer in any way yet, And there was
no time. I wrote those in the back of limos
and taxi said. There was no editing, there was no
nothing that you know, they were just as fast as
they could. I could write them down and give them
(44:41):
to a type of store, type them up myself if
I was in the office, and just make up things.
And sometimes i'd have like a phone conversation with him
and try to find out what he was doing that
week and incorporated. But half the time I just had
to make them up. But but yeah, they were fun
and they were just you know, they were for a
teenage girl audience, you know, not preteens. Actually that magazine
(45:03):
was aimed at like eleven twelve year old girls. What
a great audience to build, right, So, speaking of writing
your memoir, Lick Me is amazing. It's filled with so
many fascinating stories, and it's amazing how candid and intimate
you are, like you really went there and got into
so many tough and vulnerable moments. I really loved the book. God,
(45:24):
I wish I had a million more fans like you.
I mean, I didn't sell that many books, you know,
And but then again I don't try. I mean, you know,
it's funny because publicity was, you know, like sex to
me in the early days. I I loved doing publicity
for other people and myself. But you know, I kind
of it's almost like when I gave up sex, I
(45:47):
gave up publicity. I kind of like went the other way. Like,
you know, I kind of hide now, you know what
I mean. I don't have to hide because I can
be totally unrecognizable in the world, you know, which I
love that. And so it's funny. I'm like, not that
I'm anti publicity, but I love to do interviews like
(46:09):
this once in a while. But um, you know, I
don't like my friend Pamela Dabars, who got me the
the agent to do the book. She really milks her books.
I mean, she writes one book after another, and then
she goes on and she has she teaches women's writing classes,
and she goes on these things where you sign pictures
(46:29):
of yourself and sell them for ten dollars and bless
her heart. I really admire her for doing that. But
I was like, yeah, the book was done, it's done.
It's out there now though some people are trying to
make a movie of it or a TV show. So
now my energy is going there. I'm trying to, um,
give them ideas, help them, um and uh so we'll
(46:51):
see what happens. That is so cool. How's that going? Well?
You know, that could take forever. The guy who's trying
to do it, he's produced one movie, freak show. Did
youivverssy Freak Show? Yeah, with Bette Midler's he Brian Raybin.
He he ran Club Cherry. He's famous event person in
(47:13):
rock and roll. He had Club Cherry and oh god,
he just had a Georgio at the Standard and for
years and and he um he I gave him the
rights to sell it. Now I know how Hollywood goes.
And I think he has great tenacity and he's the
person I would want to be the producer because he
he really gets me, and he knows he lived through
(47:35):
the whole thing, and he really gets the whole period.
And and um he's a little younger than me, but
he gets it all. He's got incredible tenacity and incredible
connections because all those years that he ran those clubs
and did those events, you know, he was in charge
of you know, who got behind the velvet rope, who
(47:56):
got on the list. So a lot of people who
he recognized something in back then they were young fledglings
since became agents, writers, producers, directors, you know what I mean, stars,
actors in Hollywood, rock stars started. So he has a
(48:16):
lot of great connections with the people I like in
that in that whole world. I love his circle of
people that he's recognized, like Norman Reads and you know
people I find really I don't know, just on a
level of artistry that I appealed to me, and so
he's out there doing it now. I know it'll get
(48:38):
done one day. I would love it to happen before
I die, so I could go, you know, enjoy premiers
and all that kind of stuff. But it it might
not get done to lefter I die, And I don't
know if they'll get to make it a movie or
a TV series. I don't know. They're they're trying, and
they're hooking up with I talked to I'm not allowed
to name her yet, but I took to one producer
(49:02):
via Zoom via a zoom meeting, and she's pretty big.
She's produced a lot of TV stuff and movies, and
she's very interested. You know, it's some people don't get
it that. You know, why was I with all of
these unbelievable people all my life? You know? Why me?
Is kind of an interesting story, you know. And I
(49:23):
don't know. I know they'll find the right people and
click with them eventually. And this producer she I think
now they've found the writer who will do what they
called the Bible, and he's thinking more movie. I think
it needs to be a TV series because by the
time you get all those people in there who are famous,
who I've had something to do with. I don't know.
(49:46):
It's kind of a long movie. But I don't know what.
I don't care how they do it, and I told
them I'll help them. I've been like, any time I
think of a little scene in my head, I sent
it to them. Nut. I don't think I'm capable really
of writing the screenplay about myself. I think it needs
an objective writer in blah blah blah, And I've never
really written a screenplay except in school and stuff. So um.
(50:09):
But they asked me if I would like write scenes
when I think of them and send them to them
just to kind of give them idea. And I do that,
and I and like, now they're trying to get to
the essence of the cell of me, the hook, Like
what's what's the essence of me that they can sell
to a network or something. So I'm always trying to
give them little ideas about that too. Like the intimacy thing.
(50:29):
That's why I was talking to you about it when
we first got on, because that's what I had been
thinking about. What was it about you know, I was
looking at the Bowie movie and I was thinking, what
was it about me that would make like a young
girl now think she would want to have my life?
Because I wasn't the biggest star in the world. True.
I wasn't the you know, biggest saint Theresa or scholarship
(50:52):
scientist or you know whatever. Um. But I think the
intimacy that I had mentally and sexually with men is
of interest to young women now because I think women
want to have that intimacy with men and be able
to have that. It doesn't have to just be sexual
between a woman and a man. It's great when you
(51:13):
can collaborate on things and write songs together, and you know,
do radio interviews together, and you know, having that kind
of without you know, the threat that there has to
be sex at the at the end of the night
from either the man or the woman. That's it's a
(51:35):
new kind of intimacy. I think it's kind of cool,
so anyway, But they will make it one day. I
truly believe in my heart they will get this thing made.
But I hope I'm alive because I want to go
to the parties. Off the record of the production of
(51:57):
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